Current Events

For today’s lesson, we did something a little different: We collaborated with the Global Nomads Group, an international organization that creates interactive educational programs — video conferences, videos and other learning materials — for students about global issues, to foster dialogue and understanding about the world.

Crisis in the Horn of Africa: Understanding the Famine in SomaliaThis lesson plan was created in collaboration with Global Nomads Group.

Overview | What are the causes and aggravating factors of the famine in Somalia? With millions of people affected in the Horn of Africa, what is being done to address their problems, and what type of international aid are Somalis receiving? In this lesson, students view photographs of the crisis in Somalia, develop background knowledge about the country and then delve into the crisis there and the international response.

Materials | Photographs of, and facts about, the famine in Somalia for a gallery walk or slide show, computers with Internet access and projector (optional), student notebooks, resources about Somalia.

Note to Teacher | Some of the New York Times photographs about Somalia are graphic and may be disturbing to students. Please preview all images to determine appropriateness for your group, and consider allowing students not to view the more disturbing images.

Include in the gallery or on the screen at least three snippets of information about the situation in Somalia from New York Times coverage, like the following, all from the Times Topics page on Somalia:

“For a generation, Somalia has been a byword for the suffering of a failed state.”

“A combination of drought, war, restrictions on aid groups and years of chaos have pushed four million Somalis — more than half the population — into ‘crisis,’ according to the United Nations.”

“Is the world about to watch 750,000 Somalis starve to death? The rains will start pounding down in the fall, but before any crops will grow, disease will bloom. Malaria, cholera, typhoid and measles will sweep through immune-suppressed populations, aid agencies say, killing countless malnourished people.”

As they view the images and text, have students jot down reactions in their notebooks. Afterward, lead a brief discussion. Ask students to share the reactions. Had they been aware of what has been going on in Somalia? What do they already know about Somalia? What questions do they have after viewing these photos and hearing a little about the situation there? Record ideas and questions on the board.

The United Nations announced Monday that Somalia’s famine had spread to a sixth area within the country, with officials warning that 750,000 people could die in the next few months unless aid efforts were scaled up.

A combination of drought, war, restrictions on aid groups and years of chaos have pushed four million Somalis — more than half the population — into “crisis,” according to the United Nations. Agricultural production is just a quarter of what it normally is, and food prices continue to soar.

“We can’t underestimate the scale of the crisis,” said Mark Bowden, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Somalia. “Southern Somalia is the epicenter of the famine area in the Horn of Africa. It’s the source of most of the refugees, and we need to refocus our efforts.”

Read the entire article with your class, using the questions below.

Questions | For discussion and reading comprehension:

What factors go into the technical definition of famine?

When did Somalia’s government collapse?

What role has a militant group, Al Shabab, had in the crisis?

What diseases are now causing serious problems in Somalia?

What factors are mentioned in the article as contributing to the situation in Somalia?

Create word clouds, employing a free tool like Wordle, Tagxedo or Tag Crowd and using the Times Topics overview, another Times article about the crisis in Somalia or another article or resource on the subject. When all word clouds are complete, display each pair’s creation. What similarities are there? What differences? What did students learn from looking at the language used to talk about the crisis in Somalia?

Write informative captions for the photographs they looked at during the warm-up activity, drawing on what they read. Pairs can post their captions next to the photos for their classmates to view. The whole class can compare the captions written by various pairs as well as with those published in The New York Times along with the original photographs.

Once students are familiar with Somalia and the issues there, split the class into two groups, with half the pairs from the first part of the activity in one group and the other half in the other group.

Tell them that they will work in these larger groups to delve deeper into one aspect of the situation: Group 1 on the Somalia famine itself; and Group 2 on the international response and press coverage.

Group 1: The Somalia Famine

Group 1’s task is to investigate the role that politics and violence as well as natural disasters have played in the current famine and humanitarian crisis, which has resulted in the suffering of millions across East Africa.

Questions to consider include the following:

There are many environmental factors contributing to the famine, but what role do political factors play in affecting the situation? The Somali government? Al Shabab?

Mogadishu is the capital of Somalia, and should be a safe zone for the Somali people. What are some of the problems Somalis face upon entering the capital? Foreigners also face risks — what are they?

Somalis are finding refuge by fleeing to neighboring countries and settling into refugee camps. What is the situation within the Dadaab Refugee Camp in Kenya?

Group 2’s task is to find out how the international community has been responding to the famine, including what the challenges are in addressing the humanitarian crisis, how aid is reaching the people affected by the famine and what keeps aid from reaching its intended destination.

Questions to consider include the following:

What organizations and nations have contributed aid?

What factors have slowed contributions to aid for Somalia?

How much coverage in the news media has been devoted to the famine? By which news outlets? Can you tell the extent to which the issue is resonating with the public in comparison with other fairly recent humanitarian crises like, for example, the earthquake in Haiti?

How do aid groups operate in East Africa? What challenges do they face?

When group work is finished, have each group present their findings to the other. Then come together and discuss the following questions: Why do you think there was a delay in getting the public’s attention? How are the United States and other countries trying to help Somalis affected by the famine? Why have organizations been unable to raise sufficient funds to end the famine? What obstacles are presented to aid organizations? Can you think of any other ways that money can be raised, or ensure that food aid reaches those most in need?

Geography
1. Understands the characteristics and uses of maps, globes and other geographic tools and technologies.
2. Knows the location of places, geographic features and patterns of the environment.
3. Understands the characteristics and uses of spatial organization of earth’s surface.
4. Understands the physical and human characteristics of place.
5. Understands the concept of regions.
6. Understands that culture and experience influence people’s perceptions of places and regions.
7. Knows the physical processes that shape patterns on earth’s surface.
8. Understands the characteristics of ecosystems on Earth’s surface.
9. Understands the nature, distribution and migration of human populations on earth’s surface.
10. Understands the nature and complexity of earth’s cultural mosaics.
11. Understands the patterns and networks of economic interdependence on earth’s surface.
12. Understands the patterns of human settlement and their causes.
13. Understands the forces of cooperation and conflict that shape the divisions of earth’s surface.
16. Understands the changes that occur in the meaning, use, distribution and importance of resources.
18. Understands global development and environmental issues.

Language Arts
4. Gathers and uses information for research purposes.
5. Uses the general skills and strategies of the reading process.
7. Uses skills and strategies to read a variety of informational texts.
9. Uses viewing skills and strategies to understand and interpret visual media.

Life Skills: Working With Others
1. Contributes to the overall effort of a group.

Where did all the love go? In the 70s and 80s there were many top musicians involved in helping the starving in Asia and Africa. However, this is not so trendy these days.
One reason famine aid is not so trendy these days, is that people do not have much faith. An aim of the PREVAB project is sustainable poverty relief, by helping people to help themselves. Let’s face facts. Many people would be more likely to support poverty relief if they know that this will eventually lead to less poverty, not to greater numbers of hungry mouths to feed. Child slavery causes many of the poor to to bring large numbers of children into poverty. Ethiopians have six kids on average. The more kids you make, the more money you get if you send them to work or beg for you. This makes more hungry mouths to feed. This makes potential givers less likely to give – for obvious reasons. Therefore sustainable forms of poverty relief will make it more attractive to donate to charities.
The involuntary servitude of children (i.e. child slavery) is common in Ethiopia.
One way to restore faith in famine aid do this is to reduce child slavery.

John Lennon said we have enought food and money to feed everyone. People just need to be more charitable.

A man who becomes poor and hungry because he over indulges in drink might point out that it is not all his fault. Mahatma Gandhi said ‘The world has enough for everyone’s need, not for everyone’s greed’. John Lennon said something similar. If they were asked if the overindulgence was the cause of the povery, they would probably have claimed that there still is enough food and money produced in the world to feed the whole world forever, no matter how big the problem gets. That his hunger is therefore not the fault of his overindulgence, but the fault of those who are not charitable enough. However, those who might be charitable are afraid that giving money will result in more overindulgence – and a bigger problem. If you offer your couch to a backpacker for a night, and he later returns with two or three other backpackers, and asks you to accomadate them too, you will probably get angry, accuse him of abusing your hospitality, and suggest he learn some manners. Some say it is actually cruel to save a million people from starving, as this is likely to result in many more starving in the long run. However, educating the starving might result in less over indulgence. Therefore, aiding these problems with ethical education might prove more attractive to potential givers, than just providind food. A man who becomes poor and hungry because he over indulges might point out that he was put through stress by others. He will state that people told him to over indulge. In both cases, he will be right. The former is hard to remedy, the latter is not. If the world were simply informed that it is harmful to pressure people into unwanted relationships, and that it is harmful to exploit personal love, many children would be spared from suffering…